As a bonus double alongside the 2.4 history posted earlier today, the 2.5 history is also available for your viewing pleasure. This round was the first alternity round - the universe would never be the same again.

As always, I have leaned and borrowed on accounts from others as well as my own memories and records. For this one I'm particularly grateful to Solace's Fury history for recalling the boring events about the big alliances that I wasn't paying attention to.

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2.5

Political Backdrop:The disbandment of IGF and late-round disbandment of IA changed the political dynamic for 2.5. Joining them in not continuing into the new round were GC, who retired their tag at the end of 2.4, Deus Irae, Elementals and LoF, whose members had mostly split into other alliances. Among new alliances were RONIN, who started in late 2.4 from mostly former LoF members, Warriors, a mix of former LoF, Imperials, Elementals and Deus Irae, Iron Ring, from mostly former IA members, and also Arcani, a reforming of the Renegades from the end of 2.4 with several Deus Irae members mixed in. Cartel relaunched themselves as Shattered Dawn and started the new round allied with Phoenix, while SH, PM and XF began the round allied again. KAOS - who had inherited the 'cafe crew' squad from UF - started the round allied to AD after the two had worked together behind the scenes at the end of the previous round. Returning alliances included both House Harkonnen and Swarms of Chaos.

Gameplay Changes:The first 'Alternity' round saw the most sweeping changes since the beginning of 2.x. This round (and the following) would follow an alternative storyline - an evil Federation had emerged, of Polloid, Wraiths and Kitarans. These were opposed by the Resistance of Taenarians, Scourge and Derivians. The three NPC races - Polloids, Taenarians and Scourge - were all playable. Racial weapons were introduced, with each race having three tiers of unique weapons. The theme was good versus evil, and alliances could pick an alignment - granting bonuses in exchange for alignment limitations on members. Alliances were also no longer subject to the 30 member cap, removing for the most part the unwieldy multiple wings. Alliance points was introduced as a new ranking, covering all other activities. The galaxy map was redrawn into an 18-system figure-of-eight linked through Nexus and most of the systems were new. Federation and Resistance NPCs could be recruited to assist players with reputation, which was granted by opposite-aligned kills and could also be turned in for money. The death penalty was restored to the typical 25% experience cost.

Early Round:The new galaxy map meant there was some variety in the homes that alliances settled in. Fury claimed Meras (11), AD and KAOS settled in (8), Phoenix and Shattered Dawn in 3k while SH and XF were in Manchari (12). The early story of the round was Arcani, who had some quick successes against multiple alliances, capturing planets from multiple alliances on the 'good' side of the map. While alliances tried to retaliate there was little success as Arcani spread themselves far and wide. The only early political change was that KAOS and AD went separate ways not long into the round. KAOS would later work with Arcani, before again parting ways.

Fury vs Warriors:The principal early conflict was between Fury and the new alliance of Warriors, sparked when the latter began raiding out Fury's own raiders. An unofficial war raged for a short time, but a lack of overlap in online times meant that it was very much a raid war and the few jumps within it were sporadic. The war ended on good terms, with the kill tallies even but in the favour of Fury.

Aelanna Gets Pirated:In the early part of the round Aelanna left her ship over the station in the Neo-Taenaria system. This tempting target was shortly pirated by Lilal. However, problems immediately became apparant, as Aelanna (as the first player) had her ship linked to the code in such a way that the game was affected by numerous issues. When raided, ports would drop defender weapons. On hitting a drone stack, players were reset to 0 alignment. While most of this was simply inconvenience, one player affected was Lilal, who was reset to 0 alignment. As leader of Polar Mist, one of the few evil-aligned alliances, this meant that at the daily reset the alliance was disbanded.

Political Realignments:The mid-round saw a greater number of political realignments. Both Polar Mist and then later Iron Ring disbanded. As would become increasingly common, rather than reforming into new alliances, the members of these alliances instead mostly found new homes in the dominant alliances of the round. The decreasing number of alliances meant that the larger alliances and groups became increasingly larger, proportionally, to the rest.

Fury vs Arcani:The second major war of the round was between Fury and Arcani. Fury had eyes on SD planets, but their planned op was spoilt when Arcani pre-empted the raids. Fury decided to continue the raids anyway against the same targets, capturing the planets and prompting a war between them and Arcani. Up until this point Arcani had been the most dominant force in the round, and Fury’s first hit following the declarations was a large strike against much of their shipping. However, the war was ended due to Arcani internal difficulties.

Round Story - KAD vs WTF:The story of the round became increasingly the story of one war. Warriors and Hunting from A224 were fighting with SH and XF when their planets were attacked by Arcani - having now overcome their internal issues - and Deranged Space Pilots. Fury joined in on the side of Warriors, while KAOS soon joined in alongside Arcani after the Fury declaration as the battle lines became drawn.

The battle was between Warriors, A224 and Fury against Silver Horde and XF initially, as the first operations were ran against them. SH and XF faded from the separate war as a result and it became the clash of the coalitions, as raids, drones, kills and piracies went back and forth between the two sides over the course of a three month war. By the end of the war the kill tallies were pretty much level on all fronts as the war was fought to a standstill.

Among the significant events of the war was an early morning drone-raid of Asgard, the main Fury planet, yielding multiple kills. The war was punctuated with typical raids and a large number of jumps - with both sides having large numbers of pilots to call upon, jumps were more frequent. As the conflict dragged on, the jumps dwindled as the battle became one between raid teams and drone forces. The war ended towards the end of the round, as DSP had most of their roster disabled and Arcani fell into internal difficulties once more.

Background Noises:The small galaxy and large war meant that the majority of the rest of the alliance activity formed background noise. While they would still fight, raid and hunt, they were less able to operate independently without interference from one of the two large groups. The limited number of planets also meant that there was less for these other alliances to fight over, especially as the good vs evil theme had never taken off. Amongst these, RONIN and AD had a short but ultimately pointless and ineffective war; Shattered Dawn and Phoenix held out in a long defensive resistance of their remaining planets, SH and XF faded after the major war took off, and neither ES or new alliance Tagon's Toughs were able to have much impact. There was little for any of these alliances to write home about.

The Arcani Collapse - Cado Angelus & Sexey Dawn:As was becoming a theme with this group of players, towards the end of the round Arcani collapsed shortly after the end of the KAD vs WTF war. Several of the players immediately reformed in a new alliance, called Cado Angelus, which spent their time in an echo of the Renegades of 2.4, hunting Nexus and jumping raids. These players then made a second change, as Cado Angelus was disbanded and they teamed up with Shattered Dawn in a separate wing called Sexey Dawn. Here they would stay for the rest of the round.

Individual Achievements:Due to the nature of the round, individual activities and achievements were more common. Most solo pilots focused on NPC kills - mandark posting the biggest tally and topping 1,100 NPCs destroyed. Gryffin’s piracy tally was also a notable achievement, beating most previous round piracy tallies. The longer round meant that some of the statistics were going to be higher than average, but Link’s kill count and Enigma’s trading performance are both worthy of mention.

Tactical Notes:The new races were used but not to the potential perhaps that would have been expected. Given their group bonuses, there was a surprising lack of scourge squads. Polloids were also relatively underused, although Taenarians were a very popular choice. Racial weapons were popular choices, particularly the powerful Zallun Sabots and the Kitaran Burst Beams. Item weapons could be crafted but despite their power, these could rarely be assembled in sufficient quantity to be widely used - and selling the components was typically far more lucrative. Maneuver-based NPCs again meant that player maneuver ships were rare. Killing NPCs became a lucrative career for dedicated hunters, and players could get decent money and experience from them.

Round Summary:The alternity round theme never took off, and the majority of alliances were neutral. At best, some would have one alliance wing with an alignment. Despite early conflicts, the round was dominated by the one war between KAOS, Arcani, Deranged Space Pilots on the one hand and Fury, Warriors and Hunting from A224 on the other. There was little else of great significance that occured throughout the round, with the size and layout of the galaxy not making it very conducive to multiple independent local fights.

To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself.- Albert Einstein

Ugh, I hated Meras. Worst system we ever claimed as our primary one. I still hold a grudge against it.

This was probably one of the more interesting rounds post 2.3. Made me had faith the game was heading in a good direction- lots of wars, and the really big one was a lot of fun, and relatively even (although the number of Warriors who ran into drone stacks made me face palm myself somewhat regularly).